Mr Bungle

[astfgyl]

Thread if anyone wants talk about Mr Bungle. Got the idea from @Ochoill. We might get a few days out of it. I'll start so...

Disco Volante is their best work and has only gotten better over the years but the quality of all three proper albums is spectacular. Such a bold move to release that after the debut though I remember hearing it around the release date and being convinced that it didn't really qualify as music. The brother picked it up off the back of the FNM connection and I remember putting on the tape and waiting for the first "real song" to kick in, which never came

Never saw them live or anything but you'd never know they might be back some day

[Brodent]

You beat me to it! Haha.

I remember reading that some band members said they regretted including so much demo-era material on the debut album - that in hindsight it felt childish, and they'd already moved on from that kind of thing.  It's still great though!

I was saying in that duplicate thread, that the outro to After School Special has nothing to do with the subject of the song itself, but is actually the internal monologue of a house cat.  Yay or nay?   

[Brodent]

Thread if anyone wants talk about Mr Bungle. Got the idea from @Ochoill. We might get a few days out of it. I'll start so...

Disco Volante is their best work and has only gotten better over the years but the quality of all three proper albums is spectacular. Such a bold move to release that after the debut though I remember hearing it around the release date and being convinced that it didn't really qualify as music. The brother picked it up off the back of the FNM connection and I remember putting on the tape and waiting for the first "real song" to kick in, which never came

Never saw them live or anything but you'd never know they might be back some day

First time I ever heard them, was when John Kenny played Everyone I Went To Highschool With Is Dead on The Metal Show.  I too was a huge FNM fan at the time.

[Pagan Saviour]

All three albums are essential for different reasons. The first was my favourite for the longest time but in recent years have come to regard Disco Volante as their magnum opus. California is the one that gets slightly less air time though it is still of high standard.

I'm absolutely perplexed by what they're doing at the minute. Got raging wrath when it dropped and dug it in the moment (Maybe I was just in the humor of it) but since have hardly played it. Scott Ian's presence is highly annoying.

[Brodent]

All three albums are essential for different reasons. The first was my favourite for the longest time but in recent years have come to regard Disco Volante as their magnum opus. California is the one that gets slightly less air time though it is still of high standard.

I'm absolutely perplexed by what they're doing at the minute. Got raging wrath when it dropped and dug it in the moment (Maybe I was just in the humor of it) but since have hardly played it. Scott Ian's presence is highly annoying.

I'd go with Disco Volante > California > Debut, in that order.  They are all completely different and could be the work of 3 separate bands.  California is an absolute masterpiece, but even then Disco is the one I return to most.

They began life as a thrash metal band, hence the current incarnation that no one asked for or wanted.  It's a nice add-on to the collection with some banging songs, and it sounds great, but it's not really a Mr Bungle album is it?

They could possibly get the old gang back together, but that won't include the sax player Theo Lengyel who was arrested and charged with the murder of his missus at the beginning of the year.

[Carnage]

Bought the s/t album when it came out, still not sure what to make if it now. Too chaotic for my liking was my lasting impression, but it had its moments. It must be 20 years since I last listened to it.

Never had the slightest urge to listen to anything else by them.

[Black Shepherd Carnage]

All three albums are class. By sheer coincidence, I first heard each one in order. Self-titled through a mate in college, Disco Volante I then bought somewhere during the height of my FNM phase, and some time not long after, the morning after a session in our gaff in town I found a copy of California in the hi-fi 

Disco Volante is the one I still reach for most often. Haven't paid much attention to what they're doing these days. Scott Ian is surely, more or less unconsciously, part of the reason for that.

[leatherface]

They are impossible to categorize musically which is a feat in itself. How does one categorize them?! My favourite album nowadays is 'California', that guitar line at the start of 'Pink Cigarette' is weirdly memorable. Not sure why they are touring this 'Easter Bunny' material, seems a little beneath them(?). To each his own.

Personal story: Some mates of mine went to San Francisco to work in the 90s. When they got back to Ireland one of them said that he made friends with someone called "Trevor" who played in a band called 'Mr Bungle' and had I heard of them? My jaw dropped.

[Carnage]

Did anyone else have this T-shirt back then? Got a few comments in its day.

[ochoill]

I have so much to reply to here so I won't flood it with a load of quotes, just a general reply.

I had that t-shirt for a grand total of three weeks until I flogged two pints of Guinness into it one night on the rip and then abandoned it in the corner of my room until it was an unsalvageable burlap sack of an effort.  Had a few of their shirts, DV ones in particular I loved.

Disco Volante is not only their best album but also one of the best albums ever written.  There is just nothing like it, though there's tons of imitations and it takes some open influence, the whole work, atmosphere, style of it - everything about it - comes together in a way like nothing else does.  Ridiculously creative and a huge influence on me musically, if not very apparently.

Big love for California and the s/t too of course.  Also know them inside out.  Jaysus the Christmas gone there meself and Astfgyl and yet another one of us were singing along to Squeeze me Macaroni at an awful volume, at about seven in the evening, much to everyone else's dismay.

Never saw them live.  Would have loved to but I was young when they stopped after California so it was never even a consideration.  Not much interest in the current live thing either.  I did see Secret Chiefs 3 years ago though and briefly met Trey Spruance, but I completely froze up when I realised I was talking to one of my heroes just said thanks for the tunes and bought a record off him, basically.  Lovely dude.  My wife then told me I should have got it signed, I couldn't bring myself to go back up to him (he was deep in conversation with another fan) so she did it instead.  Came back saying "ah he's lovely." Then the realisation "Wait!  Holy fuck he played guitar on King For A Day!  I should have told him he is lethal!"

Got into them also through my brothers and because of the FNM connection, which is surely how the majority of people did anyway.

[Pentagrimes]

There's so much I could write here  but yep, picked up the albums as they came out too, and the first two had a profound effect on me both as a fan/player of music and as an enthusiast of weird unpleasant shit generally. There's a lot to unpack on those first two albums beyond the music. The first one in particular scrambled my 13 year old brain permanently.

Gun to my head, if I could only listen to one record for the rest of my life, it would be Disco Volante. An absolute masterpiece. BUT in terms of live stuff, the 92 era is when I'd have wanted to see them. The live footage from that tour is fucking insane, as are the stories.

I've also briefly and in one case unknowingly insulted Patton in person on no less than 2 separate occasions.

Also in subsequent years I've come to realise that while it's still pretty unique,  the first album owes a fair debt to Cardiacs.

[ochoill]

I've also briefly and in one case unknowingly insulted Patton in person on no less than 2 separate occasions.

You'll have to explain this 

Re. Cardiacs - huge cross influence in the 90s from what I read before.  First Mr. Bungle album, they were all definitely fans and Cardiacs were an inspiration, but I remember reading a write up on the making of Sing To God somewhere a few years back and it was mentioned that they lived off the Mr. Bungle s/t when they were sessioning during the writing and recording of it and cited them as a big influence.  Kind of cool way for it to come back around.

[Pentagrimes]

Sing to God would be a very close second to Disco Volante for me in terms of covering everything I like in music all at once.

I'll explain in person the stories aren't that amazing to be honest, just daft.

I really wish I still had my Clown shirt. But I do still have the comic the cover of the s/t album was taken from.

[Ducky]

I'm very much of the opinion that Carry Stress in the Jaw is one of the best songs ever written.

[ochoill]

I'm very much of the opinion that Carry Stress in the Jaw is one of the best songs ever written.

This is the correct opinion.  Phlegmatics, too, an opening section so unbearably lethal that I think about it almost every day lol